Individuals engaged in retirement financial planning may have a variety of goals. For example, a couple may seek to amass sufficient assets to provide for a desired standard of living for an expected lifetime, pass wealth to children and other beneficiaries, provide a reasonable standard of living even if one or both of them live longer than anticipated, and provide for additional expenses in the event of such contingencies as serious illness.
Last survivor life insurance policies may be employed to address a desire to pass wealth to children or other beneficiaries, such as grandchildren or other relatives. In these policies, a death benefit is only paid on the death of the last to die of all of the insureds. These policies may be embodied as permanent life insurance policies, such as whole life and universal life policies. These policies are sometimes purchased with a single premium payment, which may be taken from investments, for example, or through a series of premium payments.
However, last survivor life insurance policies do not provide solutions of the other goals noted above. For example, chronic illness typically results in increased expenses for in-home care or nursing or assisted living facilities, which expenses may not be included in a retirement plan's assumptions. Still further, a retirement plan may provide for sufficient income to live to age 90, but not include sufficient assets or guaranteed income to maintain the same standard of living if an individual lives past age 90.
Viatical settlements may be available for owners of permanent life insurance policies to obtain use of death benefit amounts during the lifetime of the insured. In an exemplary viatical settlement, a third party purchases the insurance policy from the owner in exchange for a cash payment. The cash payment represents a discounted portion of the death benefit, depending on the third party's assessment of the mortality of the insured. The third party assumes any obligations to make payments to the insurance company, and designates itself as the beneficiary to receive the death benefit upon the death of the insured. Viatical settlements are in many cases available only for those who are assessed by the third party as having a sufficiently short life expectancy to provide for a likely short term investment return.
There is accordingly a need for systems to facilitate planning and implementation for financial products and services that provide both for a death benefit on the last to die of a couple, as well as benefits triggered by risks that may arise during the lifetime of the couple. For insurance policies, the planning and implementation process typically involves generation of illustrations to be presented to prospective insureds, completion of applications by prospective insureds and submission of the applications to the insurance company, performing by the insurance company of underwriting on the prospective insured, issuance of policies by the insurance company to the insured, and administration of issued policies. A solution which provides for planning and implementation through one or more of these processes is desirable.